


Adjustments

by CasualGravity



Series: AkuSai Month 2019 [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Akusai Month 2019, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Description of Injuries, Slowburn Prompts, other characters mentioned in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualGravity/pseuds/CasualGravity
Summary: Saïx had honestly meant to take care of it himself that first night. And then he’d caught sight of his own golden eyes in the reflection of the window he’d intended to use as a mirror.





	Adjustments

**Author's Note:**

> Day One
> 
> **"You're going to be fine.**

Saïx had honestly meant to take care of it himself that first night. And then he’d caught sight of his own golden eyes in the reflection of the window he’d intended to use as a mirror. There was a gap in his memory between that moment and when he’d ended up curled on top of the slab in his room that passed for a bed. He lay there for hours trying to figure out if the miserable noises he was hearing were himself or Axel in the next room over and only stirred when he heard footsteps in the hall. 

The next day, Saïx fended off both Vexen and Lexaeus— _violently_ —when they’d made an effort to clean his wound for him. The thought of any of his elders touching his face had set something seething and foreign loose in his brain. Xemnas’s indecipherable gaze watching the whole encounter play out hadn’t helped that feeling in him. With every adult in the room either content to let the wound on his face fester or sufficiently chastised for trying to help, Saïx had stormed out of the Grey Area. The door to his own quarters had received only a glance before he’d walked passed it and thrown Axel’s door open instead.

There were better ways to see your best friend after two days of nothing but hearing the echoes of one another’s misery through the white walls between you, but… 

“It won't stop bleeding,” Axel said softly, his voice watery and cried out. His bare fingers were just as soft as they tugged at the bandages on Saïx's face to remove them, careful of the way the gauze stuck in the jagged edges and the dried blood. Saïx, for his part, kept his lips pressed together and tried to remain quiet until the last of the dressings were tossed carelessly onto the floor beside the bed. That done, Axel’s hands were back on his face. “It needs stitches. Or magic.”

Saïx's brow furrowed before he could think better of it, splitting open whatever had managed to close and sending a fresh rivulet of blood down the bridge of his nose. He swiped at it, agitated (aggravated? Irked? He only had the memory of bloody noses to draw from. This was supposed to be worse, right?), but only succeeded in making more of a mess out of his face.

“We don't have either right now. Make do.” 

“Isa...”

“Saïx,” He snapped. Axel startled, his green eyes going glassy. He tried to pull away, forcing Saïx to lean forward and grab him by the elbows as gently as he could manage in his haste. He didn’t want to drive Axel out of his own room and he certainly didn’t want to be the one to set his friend off again after how hard it had been for Axel to get himself together enough to be useful. Xemnas and everyone else said he wasn’t supposed to feel things anymore, but that didn’t mean that he’d already forgotten how beside himself Lea’s tears had made him when his name was still Isa. When there wasn’t any immediate danger of Axel bolting, Saïx murmured, “I don’t think it’s safe to use those names anymore. Not even when we’re alone. You understand, right Lea?”

Axel was quiet only long enough to blink the tears out of his lashes. 

“I get it. Sorry.” 

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Saïx said as he loosened his grip on the other boy’s elbows and started to rub his hands over Axel’s arms. The gesture didn’t seem nearly as assuaging with gloves and a black coat between them. “Now help me? I-it’s starting to hurt.”

And it was. His face had grown fever-hot in the last several minutes and his wound had started to throb so badly in the open air that he couldn’t help but blink with every pulse. 

“Oh, yea, I’m—,” Axel stuttered, standing up so he could collect the few first aid supplies Saïx had managed to scrounge the night before. He set fresh gauze next to Saïx’s hip, but kept a clean white cloth and a potion in his hands. Saïx watched as his red-haired friend dampened the cloth with the potion and stepped into his space. “I wish we had something better. These cheap potions are almost no help half the time. Are you ready?”

Saïx took a deep breath and nodded. There must’ve been some kind of uncertainty on his face, because Axel hesitated for a moment. 

Only a moment though. In the next, he was leaning forward and pressing the cloth to Saïx’s face, his free hand resting against the back of Saïx’s neck to preemptively keep him from recoiling away. Saïx didn’t have much more than a second to consider how pleasant it felt to have Axel’s hand there before the pain started.

The shrill sob that tore out of his throat was nearly enough to drown out Axel’s blubbering litany of ‘ _I’m sorryI’msorryI’msorry_ ’. Almost, but not quite. Involuntarily, Saïx tried to wrench himself away from the pain, but the grip on his neck tightened. Axel, his face wretched with guilt, continued his task. His hand was steady as he scrubbed the dried blood from the edges of the wound and out of Saïx’s brows. 

Minutes passed, Axel’s room filling with whatever agonized noises Saïx couldn’t bite back and the rasp of fabric over flesh when he could manage to keep quiet. He didn’t know at what point he’d latched onto Axel’s hip just to have something solid to anchor himself to but he had and he couldn’t will himself to let go. His other hand was clenched so tightly on the edge of the mattress that he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t destroying it.

“Almost done, I promise. I’m sorry. Almost done,” Axel breathed. His voice had taken on that familiar manic quality that Saïx remembered from days where guilt and comfort were secondary to hiding the fallout of their teenage foolishness from their parents. Stupid things that… had he a heart, he’d never look at with anything but fondness. Like the time Isa had stolen make-up from Lea’s mother to cover the black-eye Lea’d gotten from picking a fight with a kid thrice his size. Or when he’d walked on a broken foot for half a day after falling from his bedroom window trying to sneak out one summer night. His father had promptly grounded him for the rest of that summer after he’d found out. Hadn’t stopped Isa from sneaking out the very next night to meet with Lea all the same.

Blinking away the sudden rush of tears in his eyes wasn’t easy, but Saïx tried to all the same. 

The motions over Saïx’s face became soothing. Several gentle swipes followed the outline of the X between his brows and then Axel was pulling away. Axel’s grip on the back of Saïx’s neck lingered long enough to ease the shivers that the adrenaline had left him with and then it was gone. Saïx watched blearily as the now bloodied cloth was discarded with the bandages from earlier and what was left of the potion was set on the bedside table. His friend managed all of it without stepping far enough away to warrant Saïx having to let go of him. 

“Just needs to be rebandaged.”

“Good.” He mumbled. His eyes slid closed when Axel started wrapping the first layer. He was too sore to doze off but the rhythmic way that Axel carried out his task guaranteed that Saïx skirted that line for the quiet minutes that it took for Axel to finish. 

“Aaaaaand all done,” Axel said. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, Saïx listed forward to rest his newly bandaged face tiredly against the arch of Axel’s ribs. A pleased hum rumbled out of his throat when warm fingers carded gently through his hair only a few seconds later, careful not to undue his wrappings. “You shouldn’t have left it this long.”

No, he shouldn’t have. Explaining his lapse in judgment wasn’t something he cared to do in that moment though so he stayed silent and let Axel’s touch (and warmth. Axel was so very warm) lull him a little closer to sleep. Eventually the petting stopped and a pair of scrawny arms draped over his shoulders in a loose hug.

“Do you… Do you wanna stay here tonight?” Axel asked. He sounded unsure. Which was ridiculous, but it also wasn’t… uncalled for. Axel hadn’t left his room since it had been assigned to him and Saïx, like the rest of their _colleagues_ , had given him a wide berth; Saïx because he’d been struggling with his own adjustments and the rest because they’d been unsubtly waiting to see if Axel would wear himself down like a child being taught that it couldn’t cry whenever it wanted attention. The fact that it hadn’t immediately occurred to Saïx to check on his friend’s well-being the second they’d both been left to their own devices should have alarmed him but it didn’t. A lot of things that had happened over the last few days didn’t.

“Yes.” He said before Axel could chicken out and rescind his offer. 

“Good. Cool,” Saïx could hear the smile in his voice, but it was gone by the time he’d mustered the energy to pull away enough to look at Axel’s face. “I can change the bandages again in the morning.”

“It’s probably for the best that it’s out of my hands anyway,” He joked. Mostly. His brain was doing some pretty stellar gymnastics to avoid thinking about looking into his reflection again. He could worry about that another time though; there was something more pressing he needed to deal with. Saïx lifted the hand that had still been resting on Axel’s hip and cupped the other boy’s face. Axel’s eyes had dried in the minutes since he’d barreled his way through playing trauma nurse but they were still red and puffy. “Tomorrow we’re going to fix this too, okay?”

Axel nodded, his eyes glistening as if the reminder of his tears had summoned them back. Saïx withdrew his hand. They both drifted apart after that to do what little they could to get comfortable for the night. Boots were tossed in a haphazard pile near the empty desk by the window and Saïx removed his gloves and put them with Axel’s on the bedside table. The coats were too constricting and unfamiliar to sleep in, but they made passable blankets so both boys shed them to do just that. 

Huddling together in Axel’s bed was easy. They had a decade of sleepovers to draw from and Saïx liked to think it would’ve been easy even without that. Keeping his back to the window and the inky blackness outside it, Saïx threw his arm over Axel’s side and returned the tired smile he received when he tangled their legs together. 

The bed wasn’t made with two in mind so Saïx had no doubt that one or both of them was going to end up on the floor by morning. That was fine though.

They settled and Saïx let the steady rise and fall of Axel’s ribs under his arm lull him again. Being pulled back and forth between sleep and wakefulness was doing more to fuel his exhaustion than even his healing wounds.

“Do you think we’ll have to wait a long time to get our hearts back?” Axel mumbled just as Saïx was about to slip over the last hurdle separating him from sleep. There was a tremor in his voice, but Saïx couldn’t parse it for the start of another crying spell or drowsiness. Saïx didn’t really want to consider the question. That kind of uncertainty was too daunting to put words to and he was too tired to try. 

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t,” He promised. A promise was better than worrying Axel with his doubt, right? To reaffirm his conviction, he added. “You’re going to be fine.”

Axel smiled at him again and it was… sad. Saïx chewed at his lip, his eyes growing heavier with each passing second despite how important their exchange felt in that moment. He wasn’t sure if he’d assuaged his friend’s fears but he didn’t say any more as Axel gave the line of bandages on Saïx’s face a tug that wasn’t quite playful. 

“I’m more worried about you.” Axel whispered. 

Saïx thought about the wrongness that had been simmering in him since he’d woken with his face split open and his heart lost. He thought about the golden eyes that had looked back at him in the window.

He fell asleep thinking that he was worried about him too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm shaking off all the rust from not writing in so long so this feels a lot better than the last thing I posted, but I'm still iffy on it.


End file.
